After Baby Doc fled with Michele, I attended the installation of the National Council of Government (more like a US-installed junta, for all the fancy name) and watched in amazement as a panic tore through a ceremony and people knocked over their gold-painted, red-cushioned chairs as they tried to flee the room.

Also in the line-up: A gold-painted, python leather and Swarovski-crystal adorned women's bike from Italian bicycle maker Montante, selling for close to $43,000, a folding bike built by Mercedes, and a carbon Beru Factor 001 bicycle priced at around $30,000.